shopping

My father who owned the wagon-shop
And grew rich shoeing horses
Sent me to the University of Montreal.
I learned nothing and returned home,
Roaming the fields with Bert Kessler,
Hunting quail and snipe.
At Thompson's Lake the trigger of my gun
Caught in the side of the boat
And a great hole was shot through my heart.
Over me a fond father erected this marble shaft,
On which stands the figure of a woman
Carved by an Italian artist.
They say the ashes of my namesake

Caesar, the amplifier voice, announces
Crime and reparation. In the barber shop
Recumbent men attend, while absently
The barber doffs the naked face with cream.
Caesar proposes, Caesar promises
Pride, justice, and the sun
Brilliant and strong on everyone,
Speeding one hundred miles an hour across the land:
Caesar declares the will. The barber firmly
Planes the stubble with a steady hand,
While all in barber chairs reclining,
In wet white faces, fully understand
Good and evil, who is Gentile, weakness and command.

He wrapped them carefully, neatly
in costly green silk.

Roses of ruby, lilies of pearl,
violets of amethyst. As he himself judged,

as he wanted them, they look beautiful to him; not as he saw
or studied them in nature. He will leave them in the safe,

a sample of his daring and skillful craft.
When a buyer enters the shop

he takes from the cases other wares and sells -- superb jewels --
bracelets, chains, necklaces, and rings.

On Rabbi Kook's Street
I walk without this good man--
A streiml he wore for prayer
A silk top hat he wore to govern,
fly in the wind of the dead
above me, float on the water
of my dreams.

I come to the Street of Prophets--there are none.
And the Street of Ethiopians--there are a few. I'm
looking for a place for you to live after me
padding your solitary nest for you,
setting up the place of my pain with the sweat of my brow
examining the road on which you'll return

He wrapped them carefully, neatly
in costly green silk.

Roses of ruby, lilies of pearl,
violets of amethyst. As he himself judged,

as he wanted them, they look beautiful to him; not as he saw
or studied them in nature. He will leave them in the safe,

a sample of his daring and skillful craft.
When a buyer enters the shop

he takes from the cases other wares and sells -- superb jewels --
bracelets, chains, necklaces, and rings.

They say her words were like balloons
with strings I could not hold,
that her love was something in a shop
cheap and far too quickly sold;

but the tree does not price its apples
nor the sun its selling power
the rain does not gossip
or speak of where it goes.

TO serve the shop as 'prentice was the lot;
Of one who had the name of Nicaise got;
A lad quite ignorant beyond his trade,
And what arithmetick might lend him aid;
A perfect novice in the wily art,
That in amours is used to win the heart.
Good tradesmen formerly were late to learn
The tricks that soon in friars we discern;
They ne'er were known those lessons to begin,
Till more than down appeared upon the chin.
But now-a-days, in practice, 'tis confessed,
These shopkeepers are knowing as the best.

I

Within the town of Buffalo
Are prosy men with leaden eyes.
Like ants they worry to and fro,
(Important men, in Buffalo.)
But only twenty miles away
A deathless glory is at play:
Niagara, Niagara.

The women buy their lace and cry: —
"O such a delicate design,"
And over ostrich feathers sigh,
By counters there, in Buffalo.
The children haunt the trinket shops,
They buy false-faces, bells, and tops,
Forgetting great Niagara.

Within the town of Buffalo

They lived apart for three long years,
Bill Barnes and Nell his wife;
He took his joy from other girls,
She led a wicked life.

Yet ofttimes she would pass his shop,
With some strange man awhile;
And, looking, meet her husband's frown
With her malicious smile.

Until one day, when passing there,
She saw her man had gone;
And when she saw the empty shop,
She fell down with a moan.

And when she heard that he had gone
Five thousand miles away;

Here is my Garret up five flights of stairs;
Here's where I deal in dreams and ply in fancies,
Here is the wonder-shop of all my wares,
My sounding sonnets and my red romances.
Here's where I challenge Fate and ring my rhymes,
And grope at glory -- aye, and starve at times.

Here is my Stronghold: stout of heart am I,
Greeting each dawn as songful as a linnet;
And when at night on yon poor bed I lie
(Blessing the world and every soul that's in it),
Here's where I thank the Lord no shadow bars